Seven dead in NATO helicopter crash in Afghanistan

By Jim Loney

KABUL (Reuters) - Seven NATO soldiers died when their Chinook helicopter crashed on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, the site of some of the heaviest recent fighting between Western forces and the Taliban.

Troops responding to the scene of the crash were ambushed and called for an air strike to eliminate the threat, NATO officials said.

NATO would not say immediately if the big, twin-rotor military helicopter was directly involved in a battle with Taliban guerrillas or whether it was shot down. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

"Clearly there were enemy fighters in the area," said Major John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. "It's not impossible for small arms fire to bring down a helicopter."

The helicopter went down in the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan's main opium poppy-growing region, where Western forces have clashed repeatedly with Taliban militants in recent months following a winter lull in fighting.

"The entire crew of five died in the incident. There were also two military passengers who died," ISAF said in a statement. "One Afghan civilian was injured by small arms fire after the crash."

ISAF does not release the nationalities of soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan.

Chinook crashes in Afghanistan have killed at least 55 U.S. soldiers in the last two years.